House and Senate water bills separated by key provisions

Grant programs to assist with local levee safety and a loan guarantee for governments completing water infrastructure projects are just two differences between the Senate’s Water Resources Development Act, S. 601, which was passed in May, and the House version, H.R. 3080, which was approved Tuesday.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the House bill does not include the Senate bill’s call for a grant program for the Army Corps of Engineers, which would allow the Corps to set up assistance programs for state and local governments dealing with levee-safety projects at a projected cost of $230 million between 2014 and 2018. The Senate also approved a loan guarantee for infrastructure projects valued at $40 million over the four-year period that the House did not include.
Additionally, the House bill would provide funding for four projects the Senate bill doesn’t mention. The office predicted that the House bill will cost $3.5 billion to implement between 2014 and 2018; in a previous report, the CBO said the Senate bill would cost $5.7 billion over the same period.
The House water bill includes an amendment that gives the Army Corps of Engineers the ability to move to pre-construction planning, engineering and design activities immediately after completing a feasibility study to help speed up projects and gives non-federal entities the ability to carry out work at their own expense for a project that has a final feasibility report, but has not received authorization from Congress.
The language would benefit several ports, including Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and the Port of Savannah.
President Obama expressed his support of the House bill Tuesday with a few reservations. While the bill will help alleviate the construction backlog at the Corps, the administration also said it would create unnecessary projects that haven’t been recommended because of “marginal return on investment or other concerns,” according to a statement. The Administration is also concerned about the House bill weakening reforms passed in the 1986 water resources bill, and it brought up the House’s permitting provisions as something that might slow down project approval.
“The Administration supports investing in the nation's water resources to build the foundation for long-term economic growth, to address significant risks to public safety, and to protect and restore our environment,” according to a statement released after the House bill’s passage. “The Administration's key policies and principles will help meet our nation's water resources challenges in a fiscally responsible way. The Administration supports House passage of H.R. 3080, as it would advance some of these policies and principles, but it should be improved with additional reforms and modifications of problematic provisions.”